Adventure and Travel in Mexico and Central America, and will that damn boat ever get built?

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

It was very difficult to post anything this summer, as we were at the cottage and had no internet. So here is an installment of "What I did for my summer holidays", which was essentially spending three months at the cottage, eating, drinking and swimming. It was, well, simply wonderful.

IdleWilde CottageThurs. 29 July 2010

Well it's been three weeks since we fled the desert, and we are enjoying our life here in the bush. The weather has been hot and humid over Southern and Central Ontario, but here in the North it has been lovely. Even when it is hot the breeze from the lake keeps us comfortable and evenings are mild and calm. The sandflies were pretty annoying when we first arrived but they are gone now. Just a few deerflies during the day and the mosquitoes on the beach at night.

We have been swimming every day just to keep clean, as we have no hot water unless we heat it on the stove. The lake isn't either warm or cold: a bit bracing when you get in, but lovely to swim in after the intial shock has passed. And it is such a treat to swim in fresh water! No salty taste, no need to rinse or even to dry off when you come ashore.

Just to give you a better picture of the place the cottage is a long wooden structure among the white and red pines, nestled among blueberry and lilac bushes, and perched over a wide sandy beach. Sitting in a small cove, we look out over Rice Bay, about 3/4mile across. The rest of Talon Lake is out of sight behind high, rolling hills. The entire lake is a few miles long, divided into various bays and inlets. The shoreline has a scattering of cottages, clustered in small groups, but 80% of the shoreline and all the surrounding hills are covered in a mixed forest of pine, spruce, fir, birch, maple and aspen. All undeveloped land belongs to the Crown and is part of a Provincial park, and is to remain wild and natural. Even logging is banned within view of the lake. We are very lucky to have such a spot, and only 40 minutes from downtown North Bay.

The wildlife here keeps us entertained, with the loons calling on the lake at night, and a small flock of Canada geese and a family of merganser ducks skirting the shore by day. A pair of phoebes had a nest on the windowledge in the sunroom, but have abandoned it since the chicks have learned to fly. So now we have one adult phoebe and three chicks flying among the pines in the front yard. A mink comes by every few days, hunting among the rocks along the shore, and there is a large beaver lodge across the cove, with frequent evening traffic as they patrol the shore looking for another tree to chew down. A recent trip through the Dead River gave us the chance to watch a young moose feeding on brush by the water's edge.

This is a typical Canadian breakfast: potatoes, eggs and peameal bacon. It also came with Lorena's fresh-baked multigrain bread. Yumm!!!

Our days are filled fixing up the cottage and accumulating boats. Our friends Brian and Tanya down the lake have loaned us an old Mercury outboard for our little skiff, but we haven't been able to get it running. We also borrowed a small sailboat from them, and my nephew Ted has been learning to sail. Some other friends on the lake, the Guys, have also loaned us their aluminum skiff with a 25 hp Johnson, which they haven't used in a couple of years. We had some fuel-line problems with it, but we have it licked now. The boat will be very handy for visiting our friends down the lake, and for getting our drinking water at the spring across the lake. We also have a canoe to paddle around. Ted, my sister's son, has been doing some fishing from the canoe, and so we have had the occasional lunch of pan-fried pike. And of course we have been socialising with neighbours and friends from town.

My brother Alex's youngest two boys, Max and Sam, proudly hold up a pike. We ate it for lunch the next day.

Katie is working this summer in North Bay, but has been coming out for her days off. She usually gets a friend to bring her out. Kate has been busy doing some commissioned paintings as well.

My oldest friend Bill loaned us his car for a few days which was a huge help, but most of the time we are stranded out here. So whenever anyone calls to say they are coming to visit we give them a shopping list.

The sunroom off the kitchen has excellent lighting for painting. Kate's cousin Elysia is volunteering to help drink the beer and keep her company.

We have had a couple of cool nights, so we have to think about getting in some firewood. We cut down a big dead elm tree, so it should keep us warm for a while. The chain saw ran out of chain oil before I finished, and my brother Alex sent out the diesel motor oil for his tractor instead of the chain oil. When I called to let him know, his wife, Page, asked him diplomatically if he happened to change the oil on the tractor lately. Fortunately the answer was negative.

Went to bed last night to the gentle tapping of rain on the roof. This morning it is still raining softly. The birds are chirping and squawking in the pines outside the window. Lorena is mixing flour to bake bread. She bakes most days, so we always have fresh bread. Every day it is something different, from buns to foccaccia to cinnamon buns to regular bread, in whole wheat, rye and other mixed grains.

It feels good to be living here. It is so peaceful and lovely, one of the wonders of the world. When you consider how crowded the planet is, and how so many live in squalor or at least in conditions that never let them be away from people, machines, buildings etc. Here there is not even the sight of power lines. The occasional boat on the water or plane high overhead, a scattering of cottages along the shore are the only signs of human intrusion. The rest is wild and beautiful and free. We eat fresh food, swim when we are hot or need a bath, drink water from a spring. We have the company of each other, and of friends and family members. What more could we want or need? More soon......

Monday, May 24, 2010

How rough is too rough?

You can practice wet exit and re-entry in kayaks in calm conditions every week for years, but a single capsize in big seas is a lesson you never forget.

The first day we take our people kayaking, we teach them how to exit and re-enter their kayaks in the event of a capsize. After they do this for themselves, we usually do a paddle around the island to finish up the activity. Since this island sits on the edge of the reef, part of our route takes us outside of its protection, into the open Caribbean Sea. As we emerge into open water, we start to ride the swells, and if we have had sustained Easterly winds, (which we usually do) then the swells can be impressively large. For many people, this is the biggest water they have ever paddled.

The height of a wave is an impressive feature, but it is its steepness that determines if it is dangerous. Long, slow swells of mountainous height are no threat to a kayak, as they merely lift us up then let us down again. We usually get these waves when the winds calm down after a period of strong breeze, or when there is a strong breeze somewhere to the east of us and it is calm or light winds here. But if it is blowing hard here, the waves can be mountainous and steep, even breaking at their crests. If a wave is tall enough to “feel” the bottom, it will spill or even dump its top as the leading edge of the wave is slowed by reflection from bottom structure. A tall, steep, dumping wave will be impossible for all but the most skilled kayaker to handle without a capsize. But the capsize itself isn't a danger to a paddler here. It's what happens after.

Once in the water, a paddler has to make sure his boat, paddle, and, in the case of double kayaks, his partner are all connected to prevent them from separating. The waves will continue to push them downwind, often towards shallower water. As long as one person stays in the water the drift will be slow, and he may even have to swim his kayak out of danger before considering re-entering. Once you re-enter your boat, it drifts very quickly, abeam to the wind, making the paddler susceptible to the next wave and another capsize. This is why it is crucial to bail the boat thoroughly before re-entering. Once in you may not have much time to get your nose into the wind and your ass out of danger.

One such situation occurred recently.

James and I had just finished taking a group of students through the wet exit/re-entry exercise, and we were paddling around the island. The students were all in double kayaks, but James, Tory (the prof’s assistant) and I were in singles. James was leading the pack and the double kayaks were all sticking close to him. I was in the sweep position, with Tory, trying to keep an eye on the whole group.

I had been blowing moderately hard in the morning, but now the wind had really kicked up. From the dock on the sheltered side of the island the waves seemed big, but they were quite a distance away, so it was hard to be sure.

As we emerged through the reef-cut into the open sea, the magnitude of the waves suddenly became obvious. An eight-foot wave broke over Tory and tossed her out of her single kayak. I came alongside and helped steady her boat as she bailed. She had to work quickly as we were drifting onto the reef, where the waves, slowed by the sloping bottom, would rise to what seemed like mountainous height, and the tops curled over, crashing onto the shallow sharp-edged coral.

Tory stayed cool and quickly bailed her boat. As soon as she climbed aboard her body stopped acting as a sea anchor, and our rate of drift increased dramatically. With little time to lose, we separated and, before we could turn into the oncoming wave, it broke over us both. Tory was knocked over, and hit me square in the chest with one outstretched arm. We went over like dominoes. Now we were both in the water and much closer to the reef.

It was too late to bail now, so we swam, hard, pulling our boats with us. I began to prepare Tory for the possibility that we would have to abandon the boats to the reef and swim on without them. But we were making some headway, crossing the wind and currents instead of fighting against them. The farther we got from shore, the deeper the water was and the farther we would be from the deadly shallows.

Eventually we passed the last of the coral heads, and there was nothing immediately downwind of us. Out of danger, rolling in long swells, we relaxed and took our time. Soon the boats were bailed out and we were in them again. This time we stayed rafted together until we got turned downwind, parallel to the direction of the waves. The sea conditions here were so different from the gauntlet we had just run, that it seemed as if we had imagined the whole exercise. The rest was an easy paddle, surfing the swells for fun rather than for our lives.

By the time we got to the beach, the rest of the group had finished their paddle and had decided to come looking for us in the motorboat. They had had one boat capsize, but they were farther out to sea and not in any immediate danger, despite an unwarranted fear of sharks. The boys who tipped over had gotten back in alright and were none the worse for wear.

The question “How rough is too rough?” remains unanswered. It depends largely on the surrounding environment (ie water temperature, proximity to shore and reef), and on the experience and discipline of the paddlers. If Tory had not been so rock-solid calm, I might have had a much more challenging situation to deal with. As it was even with eight-foot breaking seas, we got out of it ok, but we really should not have been between such waves and the reef in the first place.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

San Carlos Sonora, 19 May 2010

Back again after a busy season. How do I summarise four months in a few paragraphs? Let me try.

First the challenges. I wanted time to work on Manadi, so I asked for a few free days before I started work. I got two: not enough time even to get the boat out of storage. “Oh don’t worry,” they would say, ”right after this trip you will have some time off.” And when I got back? “We had to change your schedule a bit. You are going out to Lighthouse Reef for a month, but don’t worry, we have you scheduled for some time off right after.“ And then they would change my schedule again. Six times they changed my schedule. Finally, three quarters of the way through the season, they gave me two weeks off. I worked frantically and got the boat much closer to completion. And I solved the biggest challenge: finding a way to securely connect the main hull to the amas. So now it is so close I can almost taste it. But I have to wait until next winter.

The next big challenge came in the form of illness. There is a class of viruses referred to as noroviruses, which spread rapidly, and cause a short-term illness often referred to as “stomach flu”. Nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal cramps are the common symptoms, and it lasts a few hours to two days. The worst of this group is called the Norwalk Virus, and it was rampant in schools in parts of the US. A cruise ship arrived at Belize City with 400 passengers down with the virus. Although the ship was quarantined, the virus still spread to the mainland, and eventually arrived at Half Moon Caye.

In the worst incident, we had eighteen out of thirty people (including your humble scribbler) hit overnight. We had to modify our procedures a bit to keep it from spreading, did a major disinfection of the camp, and we got it under control quickly, never to appear again. While this was going on, we continued to take those healthy enough out snorkelling and fishing. Then my nightmare happened. Two of the guests came to me and asked if they could do a little paddling, and maybe a snorkel, unescorted. I was still ill but getting better, so I told them they could paddle only as far as the end of the island – I did not want them going beyond that, as it would take them into open unsheltered waters. At the end of the island is a small beach. I told them to paddle to this beach –and no further- and wait for me there. I would head down on foot and watch them from shore f they wanted to do a little snorkelling.

I was delayed getting down to the beach, dealing with the office by sat phone, and when I got to the beach, there was no sign of either of them. I waded out and looked around the corner of the island and saw one person paddling out toward the waves, which were breaking on the coral rubble. I whistled and she came back to me. “Where is your partner?” I asked. “She went ahead.” She replied. There was no sign of her between the shore and the big waves crashing on the rocks. “Why didn’t you wait?” I asked, annoyed and concerned. “I told her to wait, but she went ahead.”

I took her kayak and went looking for my wandering guest. I paddled around the reef, avoiding the surf zone and began to scan the water and shore for any sign. The kayak was not in sight on the water beyond the reef, so I looked along the shore. My worst nightmare revealed itself. There was the missing kayak, upside down, washed against the shore. No one was nearby. My first thought was that she has paddled straight into the surf – even though she could see the waves as she approached them – got flipped over, and has hit her head and drowned. I scanned the shore for a body washed up. I saw her sitting at the water’s edge, conscious and alert, waving to me. I waved back, she waved again as if she hadn’t seen me wave. I waved again but it was no good; she couldn’t see well enough to tell that I had seen her. I was relieved that she was alive and not in immediate danger, but she still could have been injured. She was sitting right at the shore.

I paddled quickly, as I had quite a distance to go before I could land my kayak. I wasn’t going to go through the surf that tossed her out of her boat. When I got a shore, I rushed through camp, and got the cooks, Bol and Phillip to help me. Phillip came with me, and Bol went around the other side of the island. We made our way along the shore. We found the paddle, then the boat, but no sign of our wayward guest. Bol showed up, having walked the whole shoreline. The nightmare just got worse again. She has wandered somewhere into the middle of the island. This island isn’t big, but the forested section is dense and trackless. I wondered 'Why she would wander off?" And why wouldn’t she stick to the shore where she would be easy to find? She was only 150m or so from our camp, if she had followed the rocky beach. After about 45 minutes of searching I stumbled into camp, there she was, with a couple of the guys who had found her. She gave me a hug and told me she forgave me. I was ready to strangle her!

This incident taught me to be very wary of letting people go off on their own, especially little old ladies, whom you would think would have more sense. We were very lucky too, as nobody was hurt and even the boat and paddle were undamaged. She lost her sunglasses, hat and sandals though, but that is a plus, as otherwise I don’t think she would have learned a thing from this incident.Another lesson well-learned this year was one of sunburn. The day the guests arrive I inform them of the hazards to their health and safety, and the greatest threat is from the sun. I tell them that they need to stay hydrated as they need to sweat to cool down, and if they stop sweating, their brain will overheat and they will collapse from heat exhaustion or even heat stroke. By comparison, I say, sunburn is a painful annoyance. I strongly recommend sunscreen, but I let them know that if they are determined to burn themselves I don’t care. I was wrong.

We had a group of students from Prince Edward Island, on Canada’s Atlantic shore, out to Glover’s Reef for three days. What can happen in three days? Right? Wrong. These students had already spent five days on the coast, and many of them had burned and peeled. A hot day in P.E.I. is not a lot less hot than a day on a breezy cay in Belize but the difference in intensity of sunlight is huge. These young adults didn’t realise this. One young chap got a massive second-degree burn over his entire upper back and shoulders. It was horrifying. They were headed to a jungle lodge for two days after leaving our little island. These islands are a pretty clean environment, for the tropics, with clean white sand and a salty sea. By comparison, the jungle is a seething mass of infection waiting for a break in the skin to take hold, and to take over. If the blisters on this young lad’s skin were to break, he would be seriously exposed to possible infection. I made an example of him to the crowd, and told him, he needs to avoid any further exposure to the sun, and should not even consider going for a swim in the pool at the lodge. I hope he made it home alright.

So much for the challenges. Otherwise it was an incredible season. Every year we see more turtles than the previous one. As usual I got to meet interesting people from many walks of life. The crew I worked with were great. And as the season progressed the water got more enjoyable. We also had some great school groups. Tony Rino’s kids from St. Peter’s Catholic School, just outside Ottawa, were a great bunch and I turned 50 on the last day with them. They treated me like a king, as did the arriving group of guests, with most of whom I suddenly found myself sharing a decade. You only turn 50 once.

The last two weeks were very special for me. We had an unique situation, in that we were hosting a group of students who were taking a field course, through the University of Western Ontario. The professor, his two assistants, and a couple of the students were from Western, but the rest of the students were from various universities all over southern Ontario. The biggest block was from my alma mater, the University of Guelph, which has a massive biology program, and is very field-oriented. These young adults worked hard recording their observations, and devising little experiments, and they stayed up late like children, not wanting to miss a thing.

At the same time, the Wildlife Conservation Society had a team of biologists on the island. They were tagging and tracking sharks, turtles and stingrays. This was a great opportunity for the students to see field research being carried out, and even to participate in the some of the data collection. And it was handy for the WCS researchers, who used the help of the students. I had a great time, watching all of this unfold, and meeting the researchers and their assistants. I also met a photo-journalist and his assistant, who work with the National Geographic Society, and were chronicling some of the research work.

It was a great season and a smashing finale. I feel lucky to be a small part of it. CheersJack

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Evenings at the clubhouse we like to sit out on the front porch, in the afternoon breeze and have a drink while the sun goes down. There is a surprising amount of wildlife in this part of town. Across the street is a six-story Araucaria (Norfolk Island Pine) tree, with whorls of bushy branches every few feet up the trunk, and a bald top. Lately the grackles (blackbirds) have taken to roosting in the dense bushy branches. So they were understandably upset this week when a bat falcon took to standing on the top of this tree, waiting for the abundant population of bats to emerge from the eaves of the house directly below.

Occasionally a bold blackbird will fly up to the top of the tree, always coming behind the falcon, and if the falcon dives, the formerly bold blackbird and his colleagues will scatter like thieves as he dashes among them. Sometimes he gets pretty close, and the blackbird in his sights will scurry sideways at the last instant cackling wildly, and the falcon will zoom by in a streak of black and white and rusty orange. I don't think he really wants to catch one, as they are almost as big as he, but it is a good warm-up until the bats emerge.

Bats emerge in groups, flying helter-skelter, as the falcon dashes among them. It is impressive enough to see a stooping and diving falcon high over open ground, but when one flashes by between trees and buildings and pops up a block away in a heartbeat, it is breathtaking. We watch for a single bat to emerge, and one obliges, heading swiftly for the cover of nearby trees. The raptor leans off his perch and falls forward, surging ahead with a rapid beating of his wings. Before the bat can cross the street the falcon is on him but the bat pulls one of those mid-air reversals that bats are famous for and the hawk sweeps by. We cheer like fans at the arena. What a show.

Besides lounging in the evenings I have been working on the manatee. Before I install the aft and centre decks, I have to make sure I have done everything else. It will be much harder to work on interior areas of the boat once the decks are in place. I have learned to slow down, to spend a lot of time simply staring at the boat, letting the solutions to problems come to me. One such problem was how to install the rudder. I thought I would have to penetrate the hull with screws, so I cut a hole in the aft flotation chamber and installed a hatch. This way I could get at the inside at the very back, and install a wooden block to receive the screws, and also so that I didn't have a chamber in the boat that could fill with water without my kknowledge or ability to drain it.

It turns out I didn't need the hatch, because I found a way to mount the bracket by bolting on wooden side pieces that meet at the stern. The side pieces are bolted to the gunwhales, so they don't penetrate the hull, and where they meet, a third piece of wood is screwed on as a tiny transom, to receive the rudder mounting bracket. No holes in the hull. You can see in this picture the wooden brackets bolted into the side of the gunwales. The rudder is from one of my Seaward Southwinds expedition double kayaks, and should be big enough for the job.

I managed to complete a few other little jobs too, like installing the latch on the aft bulkhead hatch, and mounting wooden dogs to secure the hatches more tightly.

My biggest challenge so far has been the forward compartment. The hatch is on the bulkhead, under a long section of the midships deck and in front of the centreboard trunk. In other words, I can't get at the hatch to open or close it, not to mention manging to stow anything in there or retrieve it later. The only alternative I could think of was to install an hatch on the foredeck. But the foredeck is arched, making it difficult to install a pre-made, flat hatch, and if it were to leak, the water would get into the forward compartment, where I could never see it nor drain it.

So after staring at the boat I came up with a solution. I would install a hatch on the midships deck, above the forward bulkhead hatch so that by reaching through the deck hatch I can open and close the bulkhead hatch, and even reach into the compartment a short distance to stuff things in or take them out. Such a deck hatch needs only be big enough for my arm to reach through, so even if it is flat, it will fit the curved deck well enough not to leak. And if it does leak at all, it will leak into the cockpit where I can bail it out easily. Another problem solved.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

I have gone nearly an entire season without posting. Part of the reason for this is that I have had virtually no time off. One day, or even two, is barely enough break to catch my breath, regain my strength and do my laundry. And if I knew I was going out again so quickly I would husband my strength better. But this has been a season of sudden schedule changes.

So here I am, finally with two weeks off (!) to rest up and work on the Manatee. I don't have any pictures of recent progress yet, but I do have other pix.

One of the great things about my job is that I get to see and try out all kinds of cool gear that guests bring. Let's face it: they have a lot more money than I do. And so I have decided what my next camera purchase will be: a Canon Powershot D-10. Any old point-and-shoot will do for your run-of-the-mill photography needs, but it takes a good camera to shott well underwater. And I don't want to deal with housings. This camera takes great shots above the surface, is shallow-water proof, and take dynamite underwater pix. I'll give you a few examples from Mike (last name temporarily lost) who let me download his data card to this computer. Here are a few of Mike's better shots...

This is from the inner chamber of the "Cave of the Stone Sepulchre" Actun Tunichil Mucnal

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Back in the tropics

It’s 4:00 am, still dark. The temperature is barely above freezing and there is a heavy, drizzly rain falling. An icy wind blows the rain in gusts against me and my fellow bus passengers as we stand exposed under a high roof at the Nogales border crossing. I am on my way north, to Tucson, to catch a series of flights that will bring me to Belize City tomorrow afternoon.

Arriving in Tucson, I am the first one off the bus, but by the time I find my damn luggage ticket the only taxi is full. The desk clerk tells me he has called a guy to take me where I want to go, or he can order me a real taxi. I accept the bogus cab ride because I don’t know how long my cash will take me. So we bump and grind our way across Tucson in an old beater with a broken side view mirror (a previous near-miss, I gather), pocked windshield, broken seatbelt, and scraps of fabric hanging from the ceiling. It saves me ten bucks and I arrive safely so all is well.

My good friend Sonnie and her daughter Liz collect my international mail, and feed and house me when I come to town. Liz loaned me her car so I could make a few last-minute purchases. Thanks, Liz. I leave at 5:25, so I don’t get to say goodbye. Thanks, Sonnie.

It is still dark and pouring rain in Tucson as I ride to the airport. Earlier tonight the winds were so bad they closed the Phoenix airport (there were tornado warnings all over the state) but this morning the air is calm and by the time we take off, the sky is starting to clear. Check-in and security go smoothly and I have time to spare before my first of three flights. My only concern about timing will happen when I get to Belize City. If they search my bags, I will probably miss my flight to Dangriga. As it turns out they only ask me a few questions and let me go. I get to the departure lounge with plenty of time to spare: five whole minutes.

I love flying in these Cessna Caravans. You never see a fifteen-passenger single-prop plane anymore. The view of the coast is spectacular: out the port window you see the sea below and the islands that huddle behind the barrier reef. Out the starboard window is the swampy coastal plain, a broad, flat expanse of savannah, dotted with lakes and marshes. The coast itself is a long line of sand, with the submerged sandbars visible through the clear water. I watch for manatees along the line of seagrass that parallels the shore just beyond the last sandbar, but all I see are the remaining hulks of a couple of wrecked ships.

At the airport in Dangriga, I meet Sue and Aaron, a Philly couple who are going to Glover’s Reef. We all pile into the Island Expeditions Toyota Hi-Lux, and in no time I am back in the “Clubhouse” exhausted and sweating.

To all my friends in San Carlos, take care, have a good rest of the winter, and I’ll see you in May. More to come soon.

About Me

Operating under the name of Wilde Adventures, I am a Sea Kayak Guide, Environmental Educator and Adventurer. You can find me in San Carlos, Sonora Mexico, at the Posada del Desierto, a charming little place by the marina